Advancing sustainable research practices: Coimbra Group contributes to MSCA Green Charter revision
03 November 2025
Over the past year, the Coimbra Group has actively contributed to updating the MSCA Green Charter and its guidance materials, collaborating with other stakeholders under the leadership of the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Unit. We are grateful to our two experts, Mario Müller (University of Graz) and Louise Hannon (University of Galway), members of our Research Support Officers WG, for representing the Coimbra Group throughout this process. Their input has helped shape practical, high-quality documents. Aligned with our Durham Declaration (March 2025), this engagement from our network reflects the research community’s commitment to advancing sustainability.
The MSCA Green Charter encourages all MSCA participants – researchers, research managers, research groups, organisations and consortia – to consider the environmental impact of their practices throughout the entire project lifecycle. It sets out guiding principles for sustainable practices across all MSCA-funded projects. A multilingual version of the Charter is currently being prepared by the European Commission to enhance accessibility and broaden its impact.
To help MSCA participants better understand how they can integrate sustainability concerns into projects in practice, the Charter and its supporting material offer practical recommendations covering topics such as
- travel, events and meetings
- resource-intensive research settings
- hardware, software and data usage
- facilities, infrastructure and procurement.
Learn more about the new MSCA Green Charter here.